MDMD(5): Deism

Terrance lycidas2 at earthlink.net
Wed Oct 10 08:52:28 CDT 2001



Mark Wright AIA wrote:
> 
> Howdy, and Hear Hear!
> 
> --- Mike Weaver <mikeweaver at gn.apc.org> wrote:
> 
> > For all the claims of paranoia in Pynchon being religious, I can't
> > get away
> > from the thought that it's the other way round: religion as another
> > paranoid system/perception, another method of immobilising existence.
> 
> Mark

What does this claim accomplish? I'll go along with this. Religious
paranoia may be considered a subset of the paranoia generally present in
the texts. 
There is of course the 1960s paranoia, the cold war paranoia and so on. 

But, the claim that paranoia is  religious paranoia in P's texts is 
supportable by the texts. It makes sense to discuss the paranoia in the
books as 
religious because this is precisely how they are presented by Pynchon's
texts. 


Moreover, Pynchon defines paranoia with religious systems and
terminology. 


Here we are reading M&D. We have a Reverend for Narrator, a buddy tale
(not unlike Moby-Dick, a tale where religious paranoia drives the plot,
motivates the characters and informs the complex dynamics of the
marriage of men)  in which one of the pair, Mason, is an Anglican
Verger, the other is a Quaker. We have Wicks, Sparks, Candles and
Shadows. The novel opens Christmastide 1786. So on, and on,  and on. We
are only into chapter 7, but we have encountered dozens of
paranoid/religious systems. It's gonna get thicker. The religion here in
chapter 7 is mixed with slavery and sex. O-boy! 

Can you say Freud/Weber/Brown? At least as important as Faucault, no? 

The secular and the religious are not so easily distinguished in P's
texts. 

For example, remember that Slothrop's paranoia is introduced as a rocket
with his name on it. His friend Tantivy suggests a form of paranoia
(operational). This form will become an important  narrative paranoia
later in the book (Paul N's suggestion that we consider how paranoia
functions in the text is a good suggestion, but again, it also functions
at the character level), but P turns our attention to the WORD, to the
religious paranoia of Slothrop's ancestors (these will include Puritans
and Witches, etc.) and,  by the way, this religious paranoia is not
simply and only immobilizing, not simply a negative force or perception.
P finds much to admire in the Puritans just as he does in other
religious systems. 

"What happened? He liked it so much being dead that He couldn't wait to
come back and share it with everyone else?" MD.76  

This is what P does. Religious paranoia can be immobilizing in P's
books. This is a very important point. But it can also be very
motivating, motivating Men to kill and conquer, to enslave, to discover
some dialectic where Thanatos subsume Eros. 

And it can motivate Men to create as well as destroy, to love and to
hate. 
It can be immobilizing, but it can be liberating. It can rattle the
chains and even break them. MD.68

God said to Abraham, "Kill me a son."
Abe said to God, "You must be puttin me on." 
God said, "you do what you want Abe, but next time you see me come you
better run."
Abe said, Where you want the killing done?" 


But Abe doesn't kill his son. 

Why not? 

This is the question GR asks over and over. 

The Oedipal situation in the Zone (this is indeed a novel about Vietnam
and WWII, and War, just as Miller's play is about witch trials) and it
is a novel about Civilization and its Discontents and Illusions, the
present dispensation is a religious  paranoia that stretches like the
parabola across time and space. 

Introducing Monism is interesting but what textual support is there for
this 
division of monism/deism?



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